This post (I hope) clarifies the differences and goes into further detail about The Calling.

I Know Nothing I knew nothing about “The Secret” (and some may claim I still don’t. I’m not bothered) until a few months back when, during a meeting, Dan and Joe asked how what we study, The Practice, is different from “The Secret”.

Dan was studying with us in person that weekend and mentioned that there was a book and movie about “The Secret”.

Roku to the Rescue! I’m not sure where we found it but we found the movie on some Roku channel (we strongly recommend Roku. It’s been a gift to us. Qello, Netflix, Amazon, Calm and that’s just the start. Go get one, get rid of cableTV, pick and choose exactly what you want, you’ll be better off for it) and watched it taking notes. Dan went online and found a site that offered some kind of test which determined if studying “The Secret” would be useful to him.

One thing that came through repeatedly was that “The Secret” came down to “Ask, Believe, Receive”. Ask for what you want in your life, Believe that you already have it or can access it and before you know it, you’ll Receive whatever it is you’re after.

I have to admit, that’s one heck of a system. Ask for something, believe you already have it then stand back because you’re going to receive it.

You can’t call what’s not out there waiting for you

That right there is one of the big differences between “The Secret” and The Practice and The Calling. The Calling doesn’t work without practice and you can’t call what’s not out there waiting for you. More correctly (and as alluded to in Class/Book Notes – The Calling), you can call things the Universe doesn’t want for you. You can call it, you might get it, and the repercussions of bending the Universe to your will, while it might be an ego kick, are too frightening to deal with (my opinion). At some point, at some where, there will be a price to pay for making things go out of balance. It might not be you, it might be your children.

Kudos to those who want clean air and water for their children. Greater kudos to those who want them for everyone’s children. Remember, the Universe bats last and owns the stadium.

Is It Really that Simple? The reason it’s a secret is because it “really is that simple” (that’s the claim, anyway).

It’s called The Law of Attraction and what you put out is what you’ll get back. Just put it out to the universe that you want something, believe you’re going to get it or already have it but don’t know and put on that catchers’ mitt because it’s coming right at you. All the most successful people in the world know about this and they’re keeping it from you. They don’t want you to know about it.

Because they don’t want you to be as successful as them (again, that’s the claim).

Victim Mentality One thing that comes out of this is that it’s really well designed for people with a victim mentality (everybody else knows how to do this but they won’t tell you…unless you spend lots of money first) who believe they shouldn’t have to work for what they want.

All you have to do is ask and believe. Go buy a lottery ticket and believe you’re going to win. But make sure you really, honestly, definitely and for true believe you’re going to win.

It won’t work otherwise.

The successful people are keeping the winning numbers for themselves

And remember, the successful people are keeping the winning numbers for themselves and they won’t share them with you…unless you’re willing to spend lots of money first (maybe that’s the real Secret?).

You Can Do This…Right Now for this Special Price I mentioned above that Dan went to a site and took a test to determine if “The Secret” was right for him.

Fascinating results. As soon as he finished the test he received verification that yes, he was perfect to study “The Secret” and that he was so right for it they created a custom video to help him get started.

They must have been attracting Dan to them to have a custom video ready for him that quickly, don’t you think?

We would have been more impressed if it wasn’t the same custom video other people got when they took the test.

But wait, there’s more! Okay, maybe the custom created video wasn’t custom created. But what followed was…amusing. Dan received lots of emails (it seemed he got a new one every day) from those folks. The first’s subject line was “Response required: regarding your…quiz results” and went to “The Truth” to “Everything OK?” to “4 Days Only [Super Sale]” (that was an obvious sales pitch, don’t you think?) to “How badly do you want to be successful?” to “So I told Carl Everything” (and hey, thanks for sharing my personal info with people I don’t know!) to “do you want me or no? [24 hours ONLY]” (nothing like a site claiming it’ll help you starting to stalk you, don’t you think?) to “love me again” (I’m not kidding).

Wow, huh?

Maybe their believing-receiving system was off, huh? Maybe?

A similar site was sending emails with “You’re wise and thus, very sexy,…”

What Do I Do If that Ask-Believe-Receive Thing Ain’t Working for Me? The first thing I’ll offer is “Sorry, it’s really not that simple.”

I wish it was, I truly do.

Equally true part 1: I’ve never met anyone who stepped off a cloud and landed in a marshmallow factory (although some have tried, I’m sure).

Equally true part 2: I’ve met lots of people who knew what they wanted in life and worked to make it happen. Sometimes the work was hard, sometimes easy, sometimes painful, sometimes joyful and in all times, there was work involved.

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have.– Thomas Jefferson

Here at DiscoverThePractice and the NextStage Expanded Awareness Society, we call that work “The Practice”. Strangely enough, I’ve discovered that the more I practice the easier the work becomes, the easier it is for me to achieve my goals (let alone know what they should be), align myself to them, et cetera. I wrote about this in April 2017 – Weird Dream Fairy and The Calling, explaining how we knew it was time for a new car, didn’t know if we were suppose to get a new car or just get rid of our old one, and put it out to the Universe to make it happen.

We had a new car in about three weeks.

I suppose you could call that “Ask-Believe-Receive” with the exception that we didn’t just sit back waiting for the car to appear in our driveway; we knew we had some responsibilities regarding making it happen.

The Differences Are… I’d sum things up by offering that the real secret to “The Secret” is that it’s just like everything else (including The Practice). The only magic in anything is that which you put in.

What happens here (and I don’t know if it happens there) is that we teach you how to make magic, how to find that magic inside yourself and make it happen outside yourself.